Editor’s note: The following review was written by University of Oklahoma history professor William W. Savage Jr., author of several books on popular culture, the American West and Oklahoma. Next April will mark the 70th anniversary of the publication of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” and commentaries have begun to appear already. METAPHORICAL PAYBACKMIGRANT […]
William W. Savage Jr.
Posted inNews
Pulitzer Prize winner Ernie Pyle toured Oklahoma during Depression
Ernie Pyle was not the first famous journalist to visit Oklahoma and make light of it, but he was drunker than most, and he stayed longer. ‘ALFALFA BILL’ LETS ERNIE DOWN THE ELUSIVE MR. ITT‘PURITY OF THE SOIL’‘ERNIE TALKS OUR LANGUAGE’ Richard Harding Davis, editor of Harper’s Weekly and the best-known journalist of his day, […]
Posted inMusic
Drugs sent jazz icon Chet Baker for fall
Chet Baker was the greatest Oklahoma-born, toothless, drug-addicted, trumpet-playing jazzman ever to fall out of a hotel window and die on foreign soil. It wasn’t suicide and it wasn’t murder. It was loss of balance, which is an appropriate metaphor for his life. He was born Chesney Henry Baker Jr., on the family farm near […]